Wall Street snaps a two-day losing streak but the moves continue to be meager ones.
The Dow and Nasdaq were up half a percent - a smaller gain for the broader market.
Alcoa's better-than-expected sales the day before set the tone. Wall Street is focused on corporate revenues as fourth-quarter earnings season begins.
Along those lines, Morgan Stanley plans to cut 16-hundred employees as early this week, according to two people familiar with the matter. Why? Revenues are weak due to low trading volumes and fewer corporate deals.
Speaking of deals - Dish founder Charlie Ergen is going after Clearwire, which is already in a deal to be bought by Sprint. Clearwire could add to Dish's growing wireless spectrum holdings. Sprint may have to dig deeper to clinch its bid so the stock fell. Clearwire and Dish were up on the day.
More turbulence at Boeing. A third 787 has been sidelined - this time due to brake problems. A Boeing Dreamliner plane has had a problem each day this week. But despite that, two of the 787s' biggest customers are standing by their orders. That helped Boeing recover some of the billions of dollars in market cap lost over the previous two sessions.
Facebook is holding a media event next week - no word on what it may unveil - but just the thought something new may be in the works caused a pop in the stock. Shares of the social network topped 30 bucks for the first time since July - up some 5 percent.
Focusing on Europe - the head of GM says business is turning around, but it's still a struggle with its money losing Opel unit, and he warns Germany could be slipping into recession.
That didn't scare off investors though - shares in Germany, France and the U.K. - ending higher.

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